


Basil and the Adventure of the Golden Hamster

by lynndyre



Category: The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-12 23:53:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A deceased naturalist imported one last secret before he died...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Basil and the Adventure of the Golden Hamster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chibibee (Rebecky_Mo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebecky_Mo/gifts).



The calender reached a new century under the warm, motherly paws of our Queen, and I had been sharing rooms with Basil in our Baker Street flat for close to three years. London's streets and wharfs bustled and teemed with the tromping of many feet, horse and human and mouse alike. 

My doctor's bag lived on the far desk, now strewn with medical journals and periodicals, my coat had made its home on our coatrack and over time it had coaxed Basil's caped overcoat to join it, away from the rather more potentially damaging suit of armour. His dressing-gown, by contrast, grew ever more punctured about the neckline from the points of his darts, and I considered not for the first time adding a replacement to his Christmas parcels in a few months time.

"I like my dressing gown perfectly well, Dawson, you would do better to consider tobacco."

"Really, Basil! You might at least let a mouse try to surprise you."

Basil leant over the back of my chair, waving a piece of paper before my nose. "My work is surprise enough! Fetch your coat! We have an investigation to pursue."

I laid my pen aside, closed my journal, and had barely a moment to drain the last swallows of my tea before following Basil to the door.

***

Basil filled me in as we rode the runningboard of a loud and uncomfortable automobile towards our destination. The letter, for so it was as soon as I had a moment to study it, had come from Basil's brother, Graymark, a mouse of immense size and (if one were to believe Basil's account) of even greater import to the workings of her majesty's government. It read simply that Graymark required our help, to recover a golden treasure of great value to the Ottomouse Sultan, and that this treasure was last known to have been imported into the country by a human, now deceased- though apparently of natural causes.

Our destination was a large house, set back from the street, well screened from the noise of the road by a thick yew hedge. It wasn't difficult to gain entrance unseen, no dog barked as we crossed the lawn, and no cat napped in the flowerbeds as we climbed the trellis to the study window.

"Hurry, Dawson!" I rushed to follow him, calling back my assurances in as low a tone as I might, trying to match his path through the maze of hoarded and horrible creatures that made up this disordered menagerie.

The collection was that of the late Lord Meltwater, who had been a naturalist. His collections spanned Africa, Asia, even the Americas. Every manner of creature that once walked the open grasslands of foreign places, or lurked amongst the branches of jungle trees, from jaguars to antelope to wild pigs to parrots brighter than any British bird- all had been preserved. Their poses varied from the fearsome to the absurd to the frankly pitiable, and I marveled that Basil could make his way with such equanimity amongst claws and taxidermied fangs that neared half our body length.

From the window where we had made our entrance, it was a small jump from the sill to the side table, between the paws of a worn and saddened-looking fox. The poor creature's snout was stiffened enough to carry us to the desk, where the blotting paper was laid across with a dozen finches. I admit I covered my nose with a paw, but Basil was made of sterner stuff, or else his focus carried him through all else.

Basil nudged aside a curled and dessicated wren, but the blotting paper was clean, the inkwell dry. The contents of the desk drawers, when forced with the edge of the letter opener, appeared undisturbed. "And yet someone has been here, Dawson. And if not for the will, or his papers... Aha!"

With a cry, Basil leapt for the piano bench, knocking aside an eraser that fell, echoing, into the gaping bottom of an umbrella stand carved from an elephant's foot. I hovered at the edge of the desk, knowing my legs were not so long as to support an equivalent leap. "What are you looking for?"

"The safe, of course! Now where would I put it..." A monkey of a south american type, bushy tailed, stared glassily into the gloom from the top of the piano, and Basil jumped from bench to keyboard to tail, scurrying upwards to reach the top. The piano was an upright model, and flush against the wallpaper so that Basil was able to reach the framed pictures on the wall above it. What I had first assumed to be painted butterflies turned out on closer examination to be the winged shells of the lepidoptera themselves, mounted against dried, pressed flowers. Basil gripped the bottom of the frame in both paws to hold it back away from the wall. "Drat! I was certain a wall safe..."

"Perhaps the bookcases, Basil? Or, well, these animals do make rather good guardians, if one were hiding something. They're quite unnerving."

"Don't be silly, Dawson. A man with so many bookshelves, well used, that sort of man expects books to be noticed, expects people to look for information in them. It's obvious he would never-" Basil spun on his feet, tail snapping out with the spin of his coattails. He grinned, gesturing wildly. "He would never! Not in the books. But you're right, Dawson, you're absolutely right, it _must_ be the animals!"

"I say, you mean his secrets are hidden in these poor creatures' bodies?"

"Poor creatures, pah. But it does present a fascinating puzzle, much more interesting than a simple wall safe. I begin to suspect there is more than a simply some golden bauble to be found here."

I stared around, trying to take in the whole spectacle of the place, the way that Basil could, before centering in on those facts of greatest import. The walls were hung with huge heads of beasts, some bearing even larger antlers. The sofas, chairs, all were strewn with smaller specimens, as though whoever had begun to sort the man's effects had simply wanted them all out of the way. Where would anything be hidden in so much chaos?

Basil was ahead of me once more. He swung down from the monkey's tail and skidded to a halt before the thick body of a coiled serpent. As I moved closer, I could see that the belly was hinged, and when we lifted it rose up all of a piece, and a smaller container lay within.

"Dawson, the letter opener! At once!" The same blade with which we had forced open the desk drawers served to lever open the glass and meshwork cage. I hung from the handle with all my weight, while Basil forced his way inside, and drew forth the tiny, unconscious form of a beautiful golden-furred lady hamster.

"The Golden Treasure of the Sultan, Dawson. His youngest daughter. Of course! Stolen away for by this ... scientist, solely for the beautiful colour of her fur! I'm afraid you were right, Dawson, these are indeed poor creatures."

I laid my paw against her neck, then before her mouth, and felt the warm huff of her breath. I laid my coat over her shoulders. "But she will not be one of them, Basil. Thanks to you."

Basil twisted his paws together, and retrieved his fallen hat, nervously brushing snakeskin scale from his coat. "She will recover?"

"Water and food and a proper bed, my friend, and I think she'll be perfectly all right."

He slumped against the snake's skin, puppetlike without strings. "As I said, Dawson, I think my work proves quite surprising enough."


End file.
